Cyber-physical Identity Binding for Autonomous Vehicles using Monocular Cameras

Abstract

We address the problem of cyber-physical access control for connected autonomous vehicles. The goal is to bind a vehicle's digital identity to its physical identity represented by its trajectory. We highlight that simply complementing digital authentication with sensing information remains insecure. A remote adversary with valid or compromised cryptographic credentials can hijack the physical identities of nearby vehicles detected by sensors. We propose a cyber-physical challenge-response protocol named Cyclops that relies on low-cost monocular cameras to perform cyber and physical identity binding. In Cyclops, the ego vehicle acts as a verifier who challenges a prover vehicle to prove its claimed trajectory. The prover constructs a response by capturing a series of scenes in the common Field of View (cFoV) between the prover and the verifier. Verification is achieved by matching the dynamic targets in the cFoV (other vehicles crossing the cFoV). The security of Cyclops relies on the spatiotemporal traffic randomness. We validate the security of Cyclops via simulations on the CARLA simulator and on-road real-world experiments in an urban setting.